The Metamodern Megachurch

Christianity today--and not simply American Christianity--has been defined (whether by design or by default) by four megachurches whose collective influence has dominated the landscape for the past forty years. These include Hillsong United from Australia, Bethel Church of California, Elevation Church from North Carolina, and Passion City Church from Georgia. If we were to characterize these churches, the features would be essentially the same--thus, the possibility of lumping all four churches into a conglomerate mega-megachurch. We might pause just here and wonder if this megachurch is fast becoming a one-world religion, but statistics would show that it is not yet there. Even so, the traits of a one-world church are indeed there. If we were to define this megachurch, we would have to understand why it has grown to its enormous size, and the answer should be obvious: it reflects the culture. In order to understand what that culture is, we must define metamodernism.

I vividly remember annual ACSI conventions when I was teaching in North Carolina where renowned educators trained Christian school teachers to combat the evils of postmodernism. One year, the main session was led by Josh McDowell himself--esteemed author of Evidence That Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter, and my principal later assigned our faculty to read his alarming call-to-arms, The Last Christian Generation. In those days--not quite a generation ago--it felt like we were building a dam to hold back an oncoming tsunami. The task felt monumental, but it also felt noble, and most people seemed to be "on board." Then one year, just like that, postmodernism melted into the landscape.

What had happened to the watchmen on the wall? If modernism--the several-hundred-year reign of scientific certainty and empirical evidence taken as objective truth--had given way to a culture of cynicism, skepticism, and moral relativity, what could be worse than that? Tragically, something even more soul-numbing indeed took place when no one was looking: deception deceived without any alarms sounding. And the world didn't end as predicted. Neither did Christianity die out. Almost miraculously, it seemed more in fashion than ever: metamodernism had met the megachurch.

The rise of the megachurch seems to coincide with what Susan Cain--author of the New York Times best-seller Quiet--identifies as the rise of the Culture of Personality that replaced the prior era's Culture of Character. During this personality craze, the productive, ingenious introvert got left behind in a cloud of disdain while the overcharged and ever-present extrovert commanded center stage. In reality, postmodernism had married modernism. If we apply this simple historical phenomenon to the church, we can easily see that the celebrity now overshadowed the servant, and the stage pushed away the pulpit. The sanctuary became an auditorium, and worship became entertainment. The offspring genome of cynicism, skepticism, and moral relativity was recreated in thrills that replaced truth and in comfort that conquered conviction. The questions of empirical faith had ceased to matter.

The Seeker Sensitive Movement not only removed most churchy icons from the "worship center"; it often removed the hymnals, the pew Bibles, and even the church steeple. In came the coffeehouse, the gift shop, the rec room, the media room, the cafeteria, and, of course, as we have already said, the stage. Out went the organ; in came the band. Louder meant better, and bigger meant godlier. Before long, the unbeliever was more comfortable at church than he was in the baseball stadium, and the gray-haired saint had nowhere to turn. Amid this metamodern ideological renovation, we no longer knew exactly what we believed or if we actually believed anything, but we had a grand time singing about our angst.

The authenticity of our search virtually guaranteed that we need not find anything along the journey. The journey itself was sufficient to earmark us as spiritual amid a sea of cynicism voiced by glittering celebrities. Of course, this is not to negate the flood of "praise and worship" songs that burgeoned during this "extrovert" craze, for God Himself became the extrovert we fashioned ourselves and our congregations to be. After all, if you weren't waving your hands and dancing in church, you weren't worshipping, and God wasn't obligated to bless you.

Metamodernism is that "thin space" where doubt and faith meet; it is the authenticity that addresses deity as "God" without naming Him "Lord." (Have you noticed that? Prayers that typically begin with "God" or even "Hey, God" without any tender address of "Dear Lord" or "Our Heavenly Father"?) If modernism enticed us to give up our faith to post-evolutionary thinking in uneasy doubt "groping after God" (John Henry Newman), postmodernism said with secular humanism that "no deity will save us; we must save ourselves" (Humanist Manifesto II). But metamodernism sheared the sharp edges of each into one unifying embrace. We can have our doubt and our faith, too. The heart can celebrate more than the mind can corroborate. "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what's a heaven for?" Robert Browning so innocently quipped.

Enter emotionalism devoid of doctrine; gushing personality bereft of character. The metamodern megachurch has reaped its own doctrineless doctrine: multiple times per week I skim headlines from The Roys Report of yet another failed minister who has stolen someone's wife or bank account or both. The megachurch has lured us into the arms of celebrity preachers, song artists, and worship leaders whose popularity negates accountability, and we have all but taken this to be "normal"--because it has become the norm. The oscillating dance between a doubting mind and a daring heart has trained us to be lukewarm. We have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:5). We are the Laodicean church.

This proves, of course, that meta-"modernism" is nothing new. Not only did the cult of personality dominate first-century Christians without techno-drama and social media; these cults were built on gods and goddesses that Scripture makes clear are demons. Are we to conclude, then, that a demonic spirit inhabited the Laodicean church? Or should we connect the dots and see that the Laodicean church is the sum total of all the flawed churches--the coldness of Ephesus, the cunning of Pergamum, the compromise of Thyatira, and the corruption of Sardis? All rolled into one undulating amalgam of "authenticity"--the ancient-future church that sets aside old rugged crosses but lights candles of incense with insolent complacency: we fell in love with ritual but fell out of love with doctrine--just as the Apostle Paul warned nearly 2,000 years ago that the church of the Last Days would (2 Timothy 3:1; 4:3). Are we indeed the last Christian generation?

But all this sounds so depressing, so defeating--this creeping Laodicean lackadaisical apathy. Then again you think, No, that's not my church. I don't go to a megachurch. Ah, dear friend, are you so sure? Have you not noticed how nearly all "worship" music sounds the same? That is because nearly 100% of the top 25 worship songs sung around the world--yes, that is correct (see Christianity Today and other sources)--come from these four megachurches--all of which have either met with mega-scandal or have close ties with those who do. This is not some cranky diehard fuddy-duddy saying this. Major Christian media sources are coming out with this.

And if you do the legwork, you will find this out for yourself. Some Sunday jot down the words of the songs you sing week after week and then look them up when you get home. Who sings them? Who wrote them? What do they believe? What don't they believe? Who do they associate with? And why are these people allowed to dictate what qualifies as worshipping the Lord "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23-24)? What do the mega-pastors preach in these megachurches? And what is the Christian contemporary music industry in general leaning towards? Is it creating a network between the New Apostolic Reformation, "little gods" theology, the prosperity gospel, and hyper-grace with its notorious antinomianism? Did you know some of these groups have even written--or adapted--their own Bible?

If we took a quiz matching statements that celebrity icons have made recently, could we match each statement to its source?

• Who said, "I have a love-hate relationship with the teachings of Jesus on divorce?"

• Who said we should back off from churchy lingo such as "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty" so that Bubba won't think we're cursing in church?

• Who said about homosexuality, "I can't honestly answer on that . . . I'm not God" and that she loves the fact that her friends identify this way?

• Who shouted, "I am God Almighty" from the stage during a Sunday service?

If I don't provide the names, you will forgive me, but you have heard of all these people if you have read anything about CCM or these four megachurches in the past ten years.

I am not bashing new music. Every generation needs its expressions of faith--if that is indeed what they are. The Lord commanded us to worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). Paul instructed believers to sing and make melody in our hearts to the Lord and to worship Him with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). Are we doing that? Because if we are, we will not only be "authentic" in an authentic way; we will resist the soul-numbing slumber of Laodicea that was so putrefying the Lord spewed them out. Notice that the text doesn't read the euphemism we usually substitute accidentally--"spit." It reads "spewed." In the Greek, this word means to vomit out violently. What an end for metamodernism--lukewarm after all, for all its hype and noise! Without truth, none of that clatter even leaves the ground.

Does anyone even remember what Jesus said the week before He died on the Cross? "It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves" (Matthew 21:13). With that, He cleansed the Temple, overturning tables and driving out the "blind" moneymakers leading the blind of His day. In an earlier episode at the beginning of His ministry, John says He corded a whip and drove them out (John 2:15). Give me Jesus and I will know that "my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness." If your church still sings about that--and none of this mega-me-ism stuff--then the chances are very good that it is alive and well--no matter how softly the organ plays or how enthusiastically the extroverts sing.